Royal Garrison Artillery

The Royal Garrison Artillery was the arm of the Royal Artillery that was tasked with manning the guns of the British Empire's forts and fortresses, including the Empire's coastal artillery batteries, the heavy gun batteries attached to each infantry division, and the guns of the siege artillery.

Pre World War artillery tactics

Prior to the First World War it was still the norm that the artillery would manoeuvre on the battlefield beside the infantry and cavalry. The field artillery would form part of a battle line alongside the infantry, and on occasion the Horse artillery would charge alongside the cavalry, with guns, limbers and caissons and all. Being associated with the socially elite cavalry the horse artillery was the most fashionable of the artillery arms, followed by the field artillery, with the garrison artillery being the least favoured of the artillery arms.

Despite this reputation, the garrison artillery was technically the most sophisticated of the artillery arms. In an army that lauded the dash of the horse artillery and the tenacity of the field artillery, the technical abilities of the Garrison gunners, like that of the sappers of the Engineers, were disparaged as mere "slide-rule soldiering".

First World War

With the new long range small arms available to the infantry in the era before the Great War, artillery fighting in the infantry line was increasingly finding itself being brought under fire. The solution to this was the adoption of the principle of engaging the enemy with indirect fire. However although this became accepted official military doctrine, the gunners of the field and horse artillery tried to continue to fight in the old way. A conservatismon found on all sides as it happened. One notable action in the early days of the First World War, during the Retreat to the Marne, was a gun duel between British and German horse artillery units using open sights. In the quagmire of trench warfare that followed it was finally realised that it was not the place for the artillery to be in the infantry line.

Henceforth the artillery would be positioned well behind the infantry battle line, firing at unseen targets, at co-ordinates on a map calculated with geometry and mathematics. Skills and tactics that the Garrison Artillery had made its own.

As the war developed the heavy artillery and the techniques of long range artillery were massively developed.

Re-amalgamation

In the interwar period the artillery arms were re-amalgamated, the entire Royal Artillery being remade closer in nature to the previously disparaged Garrison Artillery.

External links

* [http://www.1914-1918.net/cra.htm The Artillery]